Patrick Carman - Atherton 02 by Rivers of Fire

Author:Rivers of Fire
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Published: 2011-11-27T15:24:47+00:00

CHAPTER 23 NIGHT IN THE GROVE

There was a time when darkness in the grove had brought a feeling of calm stillness, when the work of the day was complete and tired but talkative people sat around the soft glow of evening fires. This was a feeling that still lingered unnaturally, even though everyone knew it was untrue. What had been tranquil about the grove was in the past. The true emotion, the deeper one as night came on, was fear.

“How is it you stay so still at times like this?” asked Horace. He had come to rely on Wallace’s serene nature amid the calamity that surrounded them both. The two had been walking slowly and carefully through the largest of the third-year trees, searching for something they weren’t sure they wanted to find. But now they had stopped and sat down to rest, talking quietly.

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They carried no torch or light of any kind, but the grey hue of early night on Atherton softly covered the grove.

“There are two paths to peace,” said Wallace. He had a stick in his hand and began carving lines into the dirt. “At least there are two that I’m aware of. One is to study the ideas and the ways of peace, to discuss them endlessly, to observe them and dissect them. The other is quite different.”

The way Wallace had described the path sounded to Horace very much like the way any sane person would go about it. It seemed rather obvious that the study of a subject would naturally lead to understanding. That was certainly the way everyone approached things in the Highlands, where books were plentiful and study was common.

“The other path—the path I have taken—has nothing to do with any of that.”

“You make no sense,” said Horace. He was aware that he’d spoken a little louder than he wanted, and looking around he lowered his voice to a whisper. “You can’t just become something without learning what it is you’re trying to become.”

“Can’t you?” asked Wallace. There was an exasperating silence about him as he waited patiently for Horace’s answer.

After a long pause, Horace said, “I’m unable to see the other path.”

“That’s because you’re not on it.”

“Are you trying to confuse me?”

Wallace lifted the stick from the dirt and, without cleaning the end off, began scratching his head with it.

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“What if, instead of studying the thing you wanted to learn, you simply started performing the actions? The problem with most people is that they want to study subjects, but they don’t want to get anywhere near the discipline of truly learning.”

Horace thought this was a pretty interesting idea, though it was difficult for him to grasp.

“Tell me what you do that makes you this way,” said Horace. He hadn’t told anyone, not even Wallace, but the pressure of leading the people of Atherton was grinding away at his spirit. He missed his family—had barely seen them in days—and he was beginning to feel that the job was bigger than he was. The thought of a Cleaner hiding in the grove also weighed heavily on his mind.

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